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Jason, I found your article very valuable and a good point of inspiration to me.

I need to figure it out if starting up with an application security related "onemanband" is feasible also in Italy.

What’s your opinion about global marketshare? Could the Net help a small company in Italy to be worldwide reachable by customer?

If the answer is "yes" (and it sound a very appealing answer), have you got some suggestions in making widespread releations going over finding customers around the world?

Thanks a lotFranco

Jason

@Franco: I don’t think there’s anything about Italy that would make it more difficult to start a company. Yes, of course the Internet is the way to reach customers across the world.

The Internet, however, is also a big place. How will people find you? If they do find you, how will they know you’re the one they need? If you’re looking to sell your services globally, realize you’ll be competing with other global services companies who have done this before — what’s your angle?

These questions aren’t meant to discourage you, but rather to get you to answer them. "How will they find you" could be that you start a blog about security with useful articles people want to read, then you send people there by making comments (like this one!) on other security sites.

To compete with other services companies, perhaps you’re a lot cheaper. Perhaps you’re willing to work hourly with no retainer or long-term contract. Perhaps you can use the fact that your customers get the guru, the expert, not some employee who is hopefully trained.

Finally, remember that the first 1-5 customers are the hardest to get. You don’t have testimonials yet, you don’t have referral business yet. But once you have a few under your belt it gets easier. Also remember you can ask for referrals. Also it’s common in consulting to get one or two customers who provide you with 90% of your work.

I’ll try to write an article about this sort of thing in the near future, hopefully giving you more ideas and backing up some of these thoughts with examples and other articles from around the Internet.

Thanks for writing, good luck, and feel free to continue chatting with me!

mlgreen8753

Thanks for sharing this. Entrepreneurs need to hear this because business start-ups is one of the things that’s going to help push us out of this economic mess. Keep promoting this message. Maybe even take it a step further and do a video and submit it to Adwido’s advertising network.